coburn

Two weeks ago we had a lengthy discussion about a proposal by U.S. Sen Tom Coburn to remake the National Science Foundation. Coburn asserted that the National Science Foundation, which primarily funds basic research, needed to overhaul its grant approval process. Following that discussion I received some thoughtful comments from an engineer who has had extensive dealings with the NSF. I agreed to post some of this person’s perspective on NSF funding for those interested in how the process really works.

I’ve been following Eric’s blog for the past few months, after relocating to the Houston area from out of state. Until about a year ago, I was a professor (in an engineering discipline), and I had funding from the NSF. I read the blog from May 28, about Senator Coburn and his concerns about “waste” at the NSF and realized from the comments that many of the readers of this blog do not really know how the NSF operates or awards funding. So, what started out as a (very long) comment on that blog post has become a post of its own. For readers who are curious, I prefer to remain anonymous, as I now have a job in industry that I really love. I will say that I was not a professor at any of the Texas schools; however, I am certain that there are professors in Texas have very similar experiences with NSF. Before I go into details, I will say that my experience was limited to the engineering directorate of NSF. I had funding from one program within this directorate, and participated in proposal reviews for three other programs in this directorate. I have no first-hand knowledge of any other directorates, and each program director has a certain amount of discretion; however, considering that there is definitely an NSF “culture,” I am fairly certain that my experience is similar to the process used in other directorates. If any readers have experience within other directorates or programs that corroborates or contradicts my experience, please feel free to leave a comment.

I have taken some criticism for calling attention to research that I believe to either be of questionable societal merit or dubiously promoted. As examples of such I’ve written about faster athletes make better football players and men more likely to stick with girlfriends who sleep with other women than other men. I do not […]
[Read More]